Abstract

Statement of purpose Injury prevention professionals are part of a complicated system that works collectively to address injury prevention through development, implementation, participation in and evaluation of an injury prevention program. While the responsibilities of an IPC are vast, and often accompanied by minimal support or funding – the need for extensive reach of injury prevention programs remain. Understanding the causes for injury and prevention frameworks, theories, curriculum development, evaluation, research and program implementation are

Methods/Approach We conducted a gap analysis of We determined the parameters of injury prevention manager’s and safety officer’s roles in cross fertilisation and involvement in activities based on a review of national norms, focus groups and key informant interviews. We also convened hospital-based taskforce and community stakeholders to refine the roles and scope of injury prevention priorities for the hospital.

Results Based on these findings, program priorities were set to reflect the following:

Develop new systems to provide childhood safety information to patients and families;

Develop creative strategies and partnerships to address resource gaps that will provide program support externally.

Conclusions While the IPM is responsible for developing, implementing and identifying injury prevention programming, we believe that enhancing injury prevention occurs through sharing best practices and programs and building meaningful partnerships to sustain programmatic reach, establish policy and practice and improve patient and community education. Unfortunately, the impact/reach of these internal partnerships are often limited to hospital-based initiatives if external/community-based priorities unsupported. Elevating the magnitude and critical nature of injury prevention through interdepartmental engagement to secure ongoing support are among the highest priorities for IPMs.

Significance and contribution to the field The unique partnership with the Injury Prevention Program and Office of Safety and Security yielded significant outcomes for both the hospital and community-at-large. As a result, more than 8 members from both departments have successfully completed reciprocal trainings to work in concert as Child Passenger Safety Technicians and in disaster training and response to improve the health and safety of patients and families in the community. This interdepartmental collaboration has yielded more than 25 community-based events, 3 internal hospital policies, 6 certification courses and more than 60,000 contacts. Both areas have fully immersed activities and policies to support this partnership long-term.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

No Altmetric data available for this article.

Request permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.